Example sentence: "'Twas a lovely show, with all the wee children carrying their little flowers and marching deasil 'round in a circle," my Scottish uncle declared after watching our daughter's school pageant.
Did you know? It's an old custom that you can bring someone good fortune by walking around them clockwise three times while carrying a torch or candle. In Scottish Gaelic, the word "deiseil" is used for the direction one walks in such a luck-bringing ritual. English speakers modified the spelling to "deasil," and have used the word as both the name of the clockwise charm and the direction one walks when working it.
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I awoke with a massive hangover and noticed that when I flushed the toilet, the water was swirling deasil into the drain. Somehow I'd made it to the Southern Hemisphere afterall.
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waterloo \waw-ter-LOO\ noun : a decisive or final defeat or setback
Example sentence: The tense chess match between Jim and his father went on for most of the afternoon, until Jim met his waterloo shortly before dinner.
Did you know? The Battle of Waterloo, which occurred on June 18, 1815, has given its name to the very notion of final defeat. Why? Maybe because it ended one of the most spectacular military careers in history (Napoleon's), as well as 23 years of recurrent conflict between France and the rest of Europe. In addition, it was Napoleon's second "final defeat." He was defeated and exiled in 1814, but he escaped his confinement, returned to France, and was restored to power for three months before meeting defeat at the hands of the forces allied under the Duke of Wellington near the Belgian village of Waterloo. The word "waterloo" first appeared in casual use the following year, 1816.
Example sentence: "I've been osculated to death," Kevin complained, wiping his cheeks to remove the vestiges of kisses planted there by adoring aunts and cousins on his wedding day.
Did you know? "Osculate" comes from the Latin noun "osculum," meaning "kiss" or "little mouth." It was included in a dictionary of "hard" words in 1656, but we have no evidence that anyone actually used it until the 19th century (except for scientists who used it differently, to mean "contact"). Would any modern writer use "osculate"? Ben Macintyre did. In a May 2003 (London) _Times_ piece entitled "Yes, It's True, I Kissed the Prime Minister's Wife," Macintyre wrote, "Assuming this must be someone I knew really quite well, I screeched 'How are you,'... and leant forward preparatory to giving her a chummy double-smacker... Perhaps being osculated by lunatics you have never seen before is one of the trials of being a Prime Minister's wife. She took it very well. "
engage \ahn-gah-ZHAY\ adjective : committed to or supportive of a cause
Example sentence: It came as no surprise when Carol, always the most engage of an already very politically active and socially committed family, became an outspoken advocate for the disabled.
Did you know? "Engage" is the past participle of the French verb "engager," meaning "to engage." The French have used "engage" since the 19th century to describe socially or politically active people. The term became particularly fashionable in the wake of World War II, when French writers, artists and intellectuals felt it was increasingly important for them to take a stand on political or social issues and represent their attitudes in their art. By 1946, English speakers had adopted the word for their own politically relevant writing or art, and within a short time "engage" was being used generally for any passionate commitment to a cause.
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"Ya know, I like Audrey okay. I mean she's done some good things for the office, but she acts like she's all 'the queen of engage.' You know what I mean? I want to tell her 'Okay, we get it. You went to Sarah Lawrence. Big freekin' deal.'"
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Perhaps unsurprisingly, Gordon's personal waterloo involved both water and a loo. Of course, there was also the matter of a racoon, an industrial-sized bottle of cologne, and a partially eaten Rock Cornish game hen.
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bloviate \BLOH-vee-ayt\ verb : to speak or write verbosely and windily
Example sentence: Paul can bloviate on a par with the windiest of politicians, but he's also capable of being concise and getting right to the point.
Did you know? Warren G. Harding is often linked to "bloviate," but to him the word wasn't even remotely insulting; it simply meant "to spend time idly." Harding used the word often in that "hanging around" sense, but during his tenure as the 29th U.S. President (1921-23), he became associated with the "verbose" sense of "bloviate," perhaps because his speeches tended to the long- winded side. Although he is sometimes credited with having coined the word, it's more likely that Harding picked it up from local slang while hanging around with his boyhood buddies in Ohio in the late 1800s. The term most likely derives from a combination of the word "blow" plus the suffix "-ate."
abject \AB-jekt\ adjective 1 : sunk to or existing in a low state or condition 2 a : cast down in spirit : servile, spiritless *b : showing utter hopelessness or resignation 3 : expressing or offered in a humble and often ingratiating spirit
Example sentence: "In reality the difference between spectacular success and abject failure can come down to a little luck and a few dedicated inventors toiling behind the scenes." (Robert Langreth and Zina Moukheiber, _Forbes_, June 23, 2003)
Did you know? "Abject" comes to us from Latin "abjectus," the past participle of the verb "abicere," meaning "to cast off." "Abicere" in turn comes from the prefix "ab-" ("away, off") and the verb "jacere," which means "to throw." As you may have guessed, "reject" is a cousin of "abject" -- it is ultimately derived from "re-" and "jacere." (Both words arrived in English in the 15th century.) "Jacere" has a number of other descendants in English as well, including "deject," "eject," "conjecture," and "adjective," just to name a few.
*Indicates the sense illustrated in the example sentence.
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This is my abject response to one of my favorite threads.
...BTW, does anyone else see the similarity between "Jacare" and "jacere"? Excepting the one vowel, they're exactly the same.
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One of the most unpleasant social experiences I have ever had was meeting an abject young man and his mother who, no joke, were just like Uriah Heep and his mother. It was dang creepy.
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dernier cri \dairn-yay-KREE\ noun : the newest fashion
Example sentence: "The dernier cri today is cheap rubber flip-flops from Brazilian supermarkets, embellished with beads or sequins." (_The [London] Times_, April 8, 2003)
Did you know? Paris has long been the last word in fashion, but hot designer clothes from the city's renowned runways aren't the only stylish French exports. Words, too, sometimes come with a French label. "Dernier cri," literally "last cry," is one such chic French borrowing. The word is no trendy fad, however. More than a century has passed since "dernier cri" was the latest thing on the English language scene (and cut-steel jewelry was declared the dernier cri by the _Westminster Gazette_ of December 10, 1896), but the term (unlike cut-steel) remains as modish as ever. Other fashionable French words have walked the American runways since then: "blouson" (1904); "couture" (1908); "culotte" (1911); "lame" (a clothing fabric, 1922); and "bikini" (1947), to name a few.
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Unlike most people my age, I tend to shy away from the dernier cri of too-small shirts and too-short shorts. ...Usually. Posts: 1548 | Registered: Aug 2002
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olla podrida \ah-luh-puh-DREE-duh\ noun 1 : a rich highly seasoned stew of meat and vegetables usually including sausage and chickpeas that is slowly simmered and is a traditional Spanish and Latin-American dish *2 : hodgepodge
Example sentence: Luiza walked along silently, gazing at the astonishing olla podrida of contemporary and antique furniture, carpets, knickknacks, and baubles packed into the house.
Did you know? In 1599, lexicographer John Minsheu wanted to know "from whence or why they call it olla podrida." Good question. No one is sure why the Spanish used a term that means "rotten pot" to name a tasty stew, but there has been plenty of speculation on the subject. One theory holds that the name developed because the long, slow cooking process required to make the stew was compared to the process of rotting, but there's no definitive evidence to support that idea. It is more certain that both French and English speakers borrowed "olla podrida" and later adapted the term for other mixtures whose content was as varied as the stew. The French also translated "olla podrida" as "pot pourri," an expression English speakers adapted to "potpourri."
*Indicates the sense illustrated in the example sentence.
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He stepped lightly into the olla prodrida of the farmer's market, and then had to stop to scrape chickpeas off of his shoe before boarding the ferry.
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The biggest worry in the liberal arts education offered by most universities today is the danger of turning impressionable young minds into an olla podrida of classical influences and modern fads.
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Example sentence: At the circus one can see clownish buffoonery, trained animals, and acrobatic feats of derring-do, all in one place.
Did you know? "Derring-do" is a quirky holdover from Middle English that came to occupy its present place in the language by a series of mistakes and misunderstandings. In Middle English, "dorring don" meant simply "daring to do." For example, Geoffrey Chaucer used "dorring don" around 1374 when he described a knight "daring to do" brave deeds. The phrase was misprinted as "derrynge do" in a 16th-century edition of a 15th-century work by poet John Lydgate, and Edmund Spenser took it up from there, assuming it was meant as a substantive or noun phrase. (A glossary to Spenser's work defined it as "manhood and chevalrie.") Sir Walter Scott and others in the 19th century got the phrase from Spenser and brought it into modern use.
moil \MOYL\ verb *1 : to work hard : drudge 2 : to be in continuous agitation : churn, swirl
Example sentence: "There are strange things done in the midnight sun / By the men who moil for gold." (Robert W. Service, "The Cremation of Sam McGee")
Did you know? "Moil" comes to us from the Anglo-French "moiller," which means "to make wet, dampen" or even "to paddle in mud" -- fine visual imagery for the sort of drudge work to which this word refers. "Moil" is also often used as a noun, and because of the rhyming syllables, it frequently appears in the colorful pairing "toil and moil." "Moiller" comes from the Latin "mollis," meaning "soft." Other English derivatives of "mollis" are "emollient," "mollify," and "mollusk."
*Indicates the sense illustrated in the example sentence.
antebellum • \an-tih-BEH-lum\ • adjective : existing before a war; especially : existing before the Civil War
Example sentence: Gone With the Wind, published June 30, 1936, follows Scarlett O'Hara from her life of privilege in the antebellum South, through the hardships of the Civil War, and into the post-war reconstruction period.
Did you know? "Antebellum" means "before the war," but it wasn't widely associated with the U.S. Civil War (1861-1865) until after that conflict was over. It comes from the Latin phrase "ante bellum" (literally, "before the war"). Although it did appear in at least one publication around 1847, that reference clearly wasn't to the War Between the States. The term's earliest known association with the Civil War is found in an 1862 diary entry: "Her face was placid and unmoved, as in antebellum days." The author of that line, Mary Boykin Miller Chesnut, recorded the observation of life during the Civil War while accompanying her husband, an officer in the Confederate army, on one of his missions.
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He finally came to the decision that his love for the abolitionist's daughter was strictly an antebellum affair. Somehow he had returned to Vermont a man less impressed by vociferousness and conviction. The same qualities that had seemed so attractive, so radical, so vivacious, now grated. He had no energy left to moil. No patience for ragtag discussions at long meetings with refreshments that looked and tasted as if they'd been dredged up from Davy Jones's locker.
Yes, his love had cooled. More than cooled. He had lost it somewhere between Harper's Ferry and Antietam. And although he was one of the lucky ones, one to be envied, one who had returned home, and what's more, one who had returned to a fiancee and a rich father-in-law, he knew he'd never be able to slot himself into the path that lay before him.
So what was he he do?
It was time to find a true vocation. To become a taxidermist, or even better, a vexillologist (he'd never been fond of venery). It lacked the derring do quality that he had always insisted upon. But times had changed, and a lifetime of minutiae, of faded, musty fabrics, of colored dyes, of bars and stripes and seals and crests, didn't sound so bad to him now. Now. Now that he had returned.
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I know it's from a few days ago (the 26th), but I can't resist.
Paula's fashinable high-heeled shoes and mini skirt proved too much for her, causing her to fall on her dernier.
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Example sentence: In an emergency, an average person can become an Antaean powerhouse, capable even of lifting a car to rescue someone trapped underneath.
Did you know? In Greek mythology, Antaeus was the gigantic and powerful son of Gaea the Earth goddess and Poseidon the sea god. Antaeus was a wrestler and whenever he touched his mother (the Earth), his strength was renewed, so he always won his battles even if his opponents threw him to the ground. He proved invincible until he challenged Hercules to wrestle. Hercules discovered the source of the giant's strength, lifted him off the ground, and crushed him to death. In 18th century England, the poet William Mason discovered the power of "Antaean" as a descriptive English adjective, when he used it in his Ode to the Hon. William Pitt:
If foil'd at first, resume thy course Rise strengthen'd with Antaean force.
*Indicates the sense illustrated in the example sentence.
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He was an Antaean man, prone to ruining picnics and backyard bbq's by insisting on sitting on the cooler or thumbwrestling young children or opening soda cans with his fist.
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shanghai \SHANG-hye\ verb : to force aboard a ship for service as a sailor; also : to trick or force into an undesirable position
Example sentence: "I'm being shanghaied!" cried Uncle Jim at the family picnic when Aunt Marie pulled him away from the volleyball game to start the barbecue.
Did you know? In the 1800s, long sea voyages were very difficult and dangerous, so people were understandably hesitant to become sailors. But sea captains and shipping companies needed crews to sail their ships, so they gathered sailors any way they could -- even if that meant resorting to kidnapping by physical force or with the help of liquor or drugs. The word "shanghai" comes from the name of the Chinese city of Shanghai. People started to use the city's name for that unscrupulous way of obtaining sailors because the East was often a destination of ships that had kidnapped men onboard as crew.
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"I've been Shanghied', cried the maggot to it's wriggling brethren as it disappeared down the sailor's gullet.
It's a little known fact that the sailors of yore who ate the maggots in their bread rather than picking them out were the ones who didn't suffer from scurvy.
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viand \VYE-und\ noun 1 : an item of food; especially : a choice or tasty dish *2 plural : provisions, food
Example sentence: Adam couldn't help smiling as he read the opening line of the invitation to the Smith's annual wine-tasting and dinner party: "Join Us for Vino and Viands."
Did you know? Are you someone who eats to live, or someone who lives to eat? Either way, you'll find that the etymology of "viand" reflects the close link between food and life. "Viand" entered English in the 15th century from Anglo-French ("viande" means "meat" even in modern French), and it derives ultimately from the Latin "vivere," meaning "to live." "Vivere" is the ancestor of a number of other lively and life-giving words in English, including "victual," "revive," "survive," "convivial," and "vivacious."
*Indicates the sense illustrated in the example sentence.
canicular \kuh-NIK-yuh-lur\ adjective : of or relating to the dog days of summer
Example sentence: My canicular cravings are few, but they are irresistible: a cold drink, a soft hammock, and a good read.
Did you know? The Latin word "canicula," meaning "small dog," is the diminutive form of "canis," the word that ultimately gives us the English word "canine." "Canicula" was also the name for Sirius, the star that represents the hound of the hunter Orion in the constellation named for that Roman mythological figure. Because the first visible rising of Sirius occurs during the summer, the hot sultry days that occur from early July to early September came to be called "dies caniculares," or as we know them in English, "the dog days."
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As his mind grew weary of darkness punctuated only by star light and halogens and flourescents, he began to hallucinate, transporting himself into a languid, canicular place where potato salad, sno cones, and fried chicken collided with clogging, bluegrass and fireworks and clouded his senses with remembered textures, sounds and smells.
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fugacious \fyoo-GAY-shuss\ adjective : lasting a short time : evanescent
Example sentence: Julie's bad mood was fugacious; she cheered up considerably when her son phoned to say he would be coming home for a visit.
Did you know? "Fugacious" is often used to describe immaterial things like emotions, but not always. Botanists also use it to describe plant parts that wither or fall off before the usual time. Things that are fugacious are "fleeting," and etymologically they can also be said to be "fleeing." "Fugacious" derives from the Latin verb "fugere," which means "to flee." Other descendants of "fugere" include "fugitive," "refuge," and "subterfuge."
(c) 2003 by Merriam-Webster, Incorporated
Hmm...fugu should like this one.
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tantivy \tan-TIH-vee\ adverb : in a headlong dash : at a gallop
Example sentence: The picnic feast was all laid out when suddenly the skies opened up -- what a scramble as everyone grabbed something and headed tantivy for the shelter of the porch!
Did you know? "Tantivy" is also a noun meaning "a rapid gallop" or "an impetuous rush." Although its precise origin isn't known, one theory has it that "tantivy" represents the sound of a galloping horse's hooves. The noun does double duty as a word meaning "the blare of a trumpet or horn." This is probably due to confusion with "tantara," a word for the sound of a trumpet that came about as an imitation of that sound. Both "tantivy" and "tantara" were used during foxhunts; in the heat of the chase people may have jumbled the two.
cognoscente \kahn-yuh-SHEN-tee\ noun, plural cognoscenti : a person who has expert knowledge in a subject : connoisseur
Example sentence: "The great but not widely known pianist Dave McKenna ... is revered by the jazz cognoscenti as an inspired interpreter of American standards...." (Joseph Nocera, _GQ_, March 1997)
Did you know? "Cognoscente" and "connoisseur" are more than synonyms; they're also linguistic cousins. Both terms descend from the Latin verb "cognoscere," meaning "to know," and they're not alone. You may know that "cognizance" and "cognition" are members of the "cognoscere" clan. Do you also recognize a family resemblance in "recognize"? Can you see through the disguise of "incognito"? Did you have a premonition that we would mention "precognition"? "Cognoscente" itself came to English by way of Italian and has been a part of our language since the late 1700s. Today it is almost always used in its plural form, "cognoscenti."
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It was more than a tantivy of poor taste; it was a thread shanghai-ing. However, in the larger scheme of the word of the day thread, its effects were merely fugacious.
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peloton \peh-luh-TAHN\ noun : the main body of riders in a bicycle race
Example sentence: Thousands of cycling fans lined the race route, relaxing in lawn chairs as they waited for the peloton to speed by.
Did you know? If you've ever watched the Tour de France on television, you've seen plenty of the peloton, the seemingly endless flow of brightly colored riders making up the central group. You may have also gained some inadvertent insight into the word itself, which as you may have guessed is French in origin. In French, "peloton" literally means "ball," but it is most often used with the meaning "group." It's frequently used in the bicycling context, just as in English, but it can also refer to a group in a marathon or other sporting event. French "peloton" can also mean "squad" or "platoon," and since we've told you that you probably won't be too surprised to learn that it is also the source of our word "platoon."
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bogart \BOH-gart\ verb 1: bully, intimidate *2: to use or consume without sharing
Example sentence: "[The dog] lay dazed on her side on the kitchen floor, bogarting a bone, dozens more scattered around her like some dog play set she'd grown bored with." (Douglas Bauer, _The Boston Globe_, July 25, 2001)
Did you know? The legendary film actor Humphrey Bogart was known for playing a range of tough characters in a series of films throughout the 1940s and 1950s, including "The Maltese Falcon", "Casablanca," and "The African Queen." The men he portrayed often possessed a cool, hardened exterior that occasionally let forth a suggestion of romantic or idealistic sentimentality. Bogart also had a unique method of smoking cigarettes in these pictures -- letting the butt dangle from his mouth without removing it until it was almost entirely consumed. It is believed that this habit inspired the current meaning of "bogart," which was once limited to the phrase "Don't bogart that joint [marijuana cigarette]," but can now be applied to almost anything, from food to physical space (as on a beach).
*Indicates the sense illustrated in the example sentence.
Example sentence: "[Her] attorney does admit that his client had developed 'platonic' relationships with two cons, a couple of yeggs named Ollie and Marvin, but only to gather information." (_Fort Collins Coloradoan_, Dec. 6, 2002)
Did you know? "Safecracker" first appeared in print in English around 1825, but English speakers evidently felt that they needed a more colorful word for this rather colorful profession. No one is quite sure where "yegg" came from. It first appeared in the _New York Evening Post_ on June 23, 1903, in an article about "the prompt breaking up of the organized gangs of professional beggars and yeggs." By 1905, it had acquired the variant "yeggmen," which was printed in the _New York Times_ in reference to unsavory characters captured in the Bowery District. "Yegg" has always been, and continues to be, less common than "safecracker," but it still turns up once in a while.
incorrigible \in-KOR-uh-juh-bul\ adjective : incapable of being corrected, amended, or reformed : delinquent, unruly
Example sentence: Neil was such an incorrigible slob that his parents eventually gave up nagging him about cleaning his room and simply told him to keep the door closed.
Did you know? "Incorrigible" has been part of English since the 14th century. It derives in part from the Latin "corrigere," meaning "to correct," which in turn derives from "regere," meaning "to lead straight." In its early uses "incorrigible" was primarily used to describe people who were morally depraved, but now it is most often applied to people who merely have bad habits that seemingly cannot be broken. The word can also be used as a noun to refer to a person who possesses such habits.
alterity \awl-TAIR-uh-tee\ noun : otherness; _specifically_ : the quality or state of being radically alien to the conscious self or a particular cultural orientation
Example sentence: "And it is precisely this mix of alterity and swampy familiarity that allows [his] works to elude conceptual summary so successfully." (David Kaufmann, _Shofar Magazine_, Winter 2003)
Did you know? You're probably familiar with the verb "alter," meaning "to make or become different." If so, you already have some insight into the origins of "alterity" -- like our "alter," it's from the Latin word "alter," meaning "other (of two)." (The Latin "alter," in turn, comes from a prehistoric Indo-European word that is also an ancestor of our "alien.") "Alterity" has been used in English as a fancy word for "otherness" ("the state of being other") since at least 1642. It remains less common than "otherness" and tends to turn up most often in the context of literary theory or cultural studies.
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q: What did the neo-paganist, Chicana lesbian say to the agnostic, east-Indian transgendered person at the UN conference on the protection of multicultural, mixed and indigenous ethnies?
a: "Hey, stop bogarting all the alterity."
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MacGuffin \muh-GUH-fin\ noun : an object, event, or character in a film or story that serves to set and keep the plot in motion despite usually lacking intrinsic importance
Example sentence: The missing document is the MacGuffin that sends the two spies off on an action-packed race around the world, but the real story centers on tension between the main characters.
Did you know? The first person to use "MacGuffin" as a word for a plot device was Alfred Hitchcock. He borrowed it from an old shaggy- dog story in which some passengers on a train interrogate a fellow passenger carrying a large, strange-looking package. The fellow says the package contains a "MacGuffin," which, he explains, is used to catch tigers in the Scottish Highlands. When the group protests that there are no tigers in the Highlands, the passenger replies, "Well, then, this must not be a MacGuffin." Hitchcock apparently appreciated the way the mysterious package keeps the audience's attention and builds suspense. He recognized that an audience anticipating a solution to a mystery will continue to follow the story even if the initial interest-grabber turns out to be irrelevant.
leonine \LEE-uh-nyne\ adjective : of, relating to, suggestive of, or resembling a lion
Example sentence: "He had sat smoking cigarettes to keep himself quiet while, caged and leonine, his fellow traveller paced and turned before him." (Henry James, _The Ambassadors_)
Did you know? "Leonine" derives from Latin "leo," meaning "lion," which in turn comes from Greek "leon." "Leon" gave us an interesting range of words: "leopard" (which is "leon" combined with "pardos," a Greek word for a panther-like animal); "dandelion" (which came by way of the Anglo-French phrase "dent de lion" -- literally, "lion's tooth"); and "chameleon" (which uses the combining form from Greek that means "close to the ground"); as well as the names "Leon" and "Leonard." But the dancer's and gymnast's leotard is not named for its wearer's cat-like movements. Rather, it was simply named after its inventor, Jules Leotard, a 19th-century French aerial gymnast.
Wellerism \WEH-luh-rih-zum\ noun : an expression of comparison comprising a usually well- known quotation followed by a facetious sequel
Example sentence: Forgetful (but witty) Aunt Lynn's favorite Wellerism is, "'It all comes back to me now', said the Captain as he spat into the wind."
Did you know? Sam Weller, Mr. Pickwick's good-natured servant in Charles Dickens' _The Pickwick Papers_, and his father were fond of following well-known sayings or phrases with humorous or punning conclusions. For example, in one incident in the book, Sam Weller quips, "What the devil do you want with me, as the man said, w[h]en he see the ghost?" Neither Charles Dickens nor Sam Weller invented that type of word play, but Weller's tendency to use such witticisms had provoked people to start calling them "Wellerisms" by 1839, soon after the publication of the novel. Some examples of common Wellerisms are "'Every one to his own taste,' said the old woman as she kissed the cow," and "'I see,' said the blind man."
usufruct \YOO-zuh-frukt\ noun *1 : the legal right of using and enjoying the fruits or profits of something belonging to another 2 : the right to use or enjoy something
Example sentence: When they sold the land, the Arnolds retained the usufruct to pick the apples in the orchards they had planted.
Did you know? Thomas Jefferson said that "The earth belongs in usufruct to the living." He apparently understood that when you hold something in usufruct, you gain something of significant value, but only temporarily. The gains granted by "usufruct" can be clearly seen in the Latin phrase from which the word developed, "usus et fructus," which means "use and enjoyment." Latin speakers condensed that phrase to "ususfructus," the term English speakers used as the model for our modern word. "Usufruct" has been used as a noun for rights that seem the legal equivalent of having your cake and eating it too since at least the 1630s. Any right granted by usufruct ends at a specific point, usually the death of the individual who holds it.
*Indicates the sense illustrated in the example sentence.
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